Christophe Lemaire Thinks Trend-Driven Fashion Is a Disaster

Christophe Lemaire makes elegantly utilitarian clothing with striking silhouettes and a singular color palette for his Paris-based brand Lemaire. In keeping with the minimalist aesthetic, Chistophe rarely does interviews. But for the fall issue of GQ Style, we were able to get the designer to talk Joy Division, going trend-less, and the inimitable style of old dudes on the streets of Paris. Read the exclusive interview below, and don’t miss our conversations with fellow Paris Fashion Week all-starsVirgil Abloh, Olivier Rousteing, and Jeanne Damas.

GQ Style: Where is your head at when you approach a new collection?Christophe Lemaire: There’s always a pitch or a mood or a certain reference. It’s difficult to put it in a precise frame, but it’s something we have in mind when we work on the collection. But at the end of the day it’s always constantly reworking the essentials, looking for something timeless, trying to pervert a little bit the archetypes. Looking for the obvious and the special at the same time, something that’s good looking and good for you, something that you need as much as you want.

When you say that you don’t necessarily think seasonally, is that because, from a design perspective, it’s an evolution that ebbs and flows?
Yes, exactly. It’s trying to improve season after season, and looking for something steady. I like colors, I like fluidity, I like to play with things, but at the end of the day I don’t like if fashion is too precious. I like something to be steady, stable, solid.

Do you see the clothes starting with the fabric? Or is it not that simple?
Technically the fabric has to come first just for timing issues, and also at the end of the day if you’re looking for something simple and a bit timeless, the quality of the fabric is so important. With Lemaire, compared to other brands, the fabric is an important proportion of the price. We don’t compromise with that because we like things that age well, things that you can keep in your wardrobe for years, this is what we have in mind. Also the way it’s built, the way it’s sewn, the construction—basically it’s just design, design, and design. It’s about design.

How do you see Paris? Are you out in the street, seeing what people are wearing? How would you characterize what being based here has to do with the design?
Well, I grew up here, and I’m very inspired by the street of course. I’m desperately still a teenager somehow with my music. I think it’s obvious there are references to bands I always love. The [Spring-Summer] collection is about German prog rock and early-’80s bands, of course new wave and bands like Joy Division and Suicide are always there. So this is an influence, but also the streets of Paris.

Is it about the people in the band, the style of the band, or the music itself?
It’s difficult to say, sometimes it’s very precisely the way they used to dress, but also the energy, the mood, the spirit it drives, so it can be a mood more than just a style.

Is there one thing in Paris that you really love to do that someone like me might not really know about?
Belleville is very interesting always. It’s very mixed socially, emotionally. It’s a bit of a constant mess. You have this mix of Asian restaurant and Maghreb restaurants or shops. And you have all these old Chinese or Arab men dressing very stylishly. The way they combine certain colors, it’s always quite sharp in an unfashion way which I really love always. So there is always a bit of that in Lemaire. There are musical references. There is Asia of course. But at the end of the day I also feel Paris is at the heart of a European world, which we strongly believe in, especially today with the recent happenings. At the end of the day, France and Europe stands for a different point of view about life, about culture, about what is important politically. There’s also a bit of that in our work. It’s difficult to explain precisely, but there is probably this European point of view, I’d say more European than French in a way.

Is it a design stroke or is it just a sensibility and emotion?
It’s a sensibility. It’s a point of view. I think we need point of views. At the end of the day it’s only clothes. But again with these old men in Belleville, what I like is they have a certain dignity about them and are resistant to trends. I think it’s important especially today in the media ecosystem where we are constantly over-informed and there’s a certain pressure to say to people that if you want to be cool, it has to be that way, if you’re not like this other trend you’re off. I think this is a disaster, and I think this doesn’t work anymore. It’s important to resist trends and remember who you are. I’m looking for dignity. We’re trying to provide clothes that can help you feel dignified or stable. I think in fashion there’s this dimension too, it’s of course not only about the superficial image you want to project to others, it’s also about how these clothes make you feel. When you wear good clothes you feel a bit stronger.

Sometimes it can feel like just clothes, and you think, who cares, but other times it feels like that’s part of our point of view.
That’s why fashion, style, it’s not a superficial thing. It’s the first thing you project of yourself to others, it’s a language, it’s a relationship to yourself, it’s something quite deep actually. You have to know yourself, you can play with yourself, you can be eccentric if you want, it doesn’t have to be necessarily serious, but you have to feel comfortable with yourself. That’s why it’s important to resist the conditioning that the system tries to impose on people.

I find that sometimes I’m somewhere at a show and I just feel the crass commercialism, other times I’m so full of emotion and inspired that my hair is standing back on my arms. You feel the whole range.
That’s interesting because I think when you go to a shop or to a brand you feel a certain level of honesty, or not. And it’s difficult to explain why. Personally there are some brands that I really like or respect because I feel there is a certain honesty. I don’t feel fooled. It’s like in music sometimes. There’s nothing wrong with R&B, but the problem with R&B or pop sometimes is you feel a bit fooled or tricked. You feel the calculation there. That’s why all the bands that I love, they were completely unsuccessful back in the day. If you think about Suicide or Velvet Underground, I think Brian Eno said that maybe 1,000 people bought their records, but all of them wanted to start a band. And then it became, you know, music that never ages. I think it’s important to be aware that we’re doing a business, at the end of the day I want my clothes to be worn and I want them to be sold. Fashion is not art, it’s a little bit more complicated than that. But there is a certain level of purity or honesty here, and also respect of your clients, and not fooling them about the quality.

I think the culture now, people are better than ever and they can smell bullshit. I think it’s encouraging to be at a time where honesty gets recognized.
There’s so much happening everywhere, but if something is very consistent and coherent, people feel that.

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